The Journey
by BonesBird
Summary: B'Elanna reflects on seven years in the Delta Quadrant, and the meaning of life. Set during Endgame


**Title: The Journey  
****Summary: B'Elanna reflects on seven years in the Delta Quadrant, and the meaning of life. Set during Endgame  
****Lyrics: Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) - Green Day**

**As always. I sat down to write this for the Drabble challenge, and it ended up being this. I'm not really sure of it, as it's something I've never written before. But, apparently this is what my muse wanted, and she's very stubborn when she wants to be.**

**Muchos gracias to Jekkah for reading through for me, as this was written before my lovely partner in crime PinkAngel was online to read it.**

* * *

_**Another turning point a fork stuck in the road  
**__**Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go  
**__**So make the best of this test and don't ask why  
**__**It's not a question but a lesson learned in time  
**__**It's something unpredictable but in the end that's right  
**__**I hope you had the time of your life**_

* * *

"The journey. That's what everything comes down to in the end, isn't it. Everyone is on some kind of journey. Whether it's time, or space, or just getting through the day. Everyone is on a journey.

Does the destination even matter? Really? Surely, the destination of life is just death. Nothing more. The end of being. Whatever you want to call it. It's just… the end. Nothing more.

So, what we do every day is our journey, and in that journey, there are small journeys that make up the sum total of our experiences. All that I do, getting married, pregnant... Fixing this ship every single day. They are just, what? Distractions? Something to stop me thinking about the end of my existence. Whenever that might be.

But, the thing about life is, it's unpredictable. You can't know what's going to happen. Even this damn admiral from whatever future it is she's come from. She can't unequivocally tell me that the baby is going to be healthy. That Tom and I will live a long and happy life. Because she changed everything.

Was this something else we needed to experience. How is that really fair? I mean… if she wanted to get us back, why didn't she go back to when we first got to the Delta Quadrant, and stop the Captain from destroying the Caretaker's Array? Or any one of the other times that we could have got home, but didn't. Why did she pick now.

I know that this journey has been the biggest changing point in my life. Bigger than Father leaving, bigger than Starfleet, bigger than Bajor. The seven years I've spent in the Delta Quadrant… They've been incredible. I've seen things… Done things… That nobody on Earth even dreamed about.

And I've grown. I've changed. This journey changed me. When we started I didn't trust many people. Chakotay, Mike… Seska.

I haven't thought about Seska in a long time, a very long time. She was… I thought she was my best friend. My confidante. How wrong I was... But they were the people I trusted. And myself. I always trusted myself. Even when I was in the prison camp, or fighting for life before that. I trusted myself.

Now though. Tom, and Harry, and the Captain, and the Doc, and everyone else. We've been through so much. Harry and I… He was the first member of the crew I met out here, and we had to depend on each other pretty quickly. So, I suppose, out of all the Starfleeters, he was the one I trusted first. I had to. Same with the Captain.

Tom. So many things, so many moments. I look back and I still wonder how we ended up here. How we've ended up married, days from becoming parents. I remember all of it with such vivid detail. The Vidiiaans prison camp, the Warp 10 fiasco… The time I had Pon-Farr.

They were all moments on this journey too, I suppose. Everything we've been through has been. But really, I mean really? What did all that matter. It was all just, these building blocks to us being here. Today. Installing technology from the future into our home, just so we can attempt to go back to somewhere that hasn't been home to many of us for a long time.

When did Voyager become my home? I don't know. But she is, and really, I don't want to leave her. I know I'm not the only one. Over the years we've become a family, and Voyager is as much a part of that family as me, or the Captain or anyone else…

So anyway, as I was saying. Nobody can know what the future is truly going to bring. We could all die tomorrow, or we could all live to be a hundred. Who knows? Maybe that's the point. We're not to know, because then we'd try to change things. Do things differently. If I'd been told seven months ago we might die in seven months time, would Tom and I have gotten pregnant. If we'd been told seven years ago that we were going to get stuck in the Delta Quadrant, would we have ever come out here to begin with. If our ancestors, on whatever world, had been told that in the future, they would be allied with thousands of worlds. Trillions of people. Would they have strived for the stars earlier and changed the course of the future just by that.

Nothing is certain, and that terrifies me, but it excites me too. Every day is something new. Every day we can change the future. But the past will remain the same.

Voyager will always be an enormous part of me. I know that. Everything changed for me here. Everything. That's what this has given me.

Maybe this has been the best time, maybe one day we'll look back on this day and be thankful. Be happy that it all happened. Or maybe, that's all just wishful thinking. I don't even know what I'm saying any more. End log."


End file.
